Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

“The time has come. You can’t keep a man like him in chains forever.”

“But he’s one of the most valuable slaves I own. You’re telling me to just give up my valuable property. Free him. Just like that. That’s what you’re saying.”

“No, Drayle, let the old man buy him. The man offered to buy him. Sell him and get your money. If you got your money, would that make you happy?”

She felt chilled. She was still naked and Drayle held her gown in his hands, suspended. Then he pulled the gown over her body. She picked her fingers through a knot of tangles in the back of her head that had clenched up in the steam of the water.

“Drayle, you’ll do it, won’t you? You’ll do what’s right?”

“Come on, woman.” he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the bedroom.

She yanked back. “No, not this time. This time you give me an answer. You won’t give me an answer about my children. You won’t give me an answer about anything. But…” She lowered her voice. “Give me an answer about Philip.”

She understood the risk she was taking. White folks had a way of having a limited number of acts of generosity. If he listened to her about Philip, the chances of freeing her children would decrease. She tried not to dwell on this.

“Why are you pleading his case all of a sudden?” he looked around the cottage, as if searching for clues of betrayal.

“You know that man is like a brother to me. He ain’t never been more than that, and he never will be. Now what are you going to do? Are you going to be a man and free him?”

“Shut up, woman. Don’t you call me out of my name.”

“I didn’t call you out of your name. Tell me something, Drayle. Are you the kind of master everybody back home makes you out to be? Or are you something else?”

He looked down at the brown nipples peeking through the thin fabric of her shirt. “I’ll think about it. Is that good enough for you? I won’t say no and I won’t say yes. I’ll say-”

“What?”

“Let me think about it. How about that?” he reached for her hand.

But for the first time since she could remember, she refused him. And that was the way it was that night. And that was the way it would be for a few nights more.

The last words out of his mouth before he fell off to sleep were: “We never should’ve allowed y’all to go off to Dayton.”

Early the next morning Lizzie rose and lit the outside fire in preparation for breakfast. On her way back from the hotel, laden with the day’s provisions, she spotted Mawu running toward her. “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie,” Mawu was saying over and over. Not loudly, but enough where Lizzie could hear the z’s carrying through the air.

When Mawu reached her, she circled her arms around Lizzie.

“What is it?” Lizzie asked. She peeked over Mawu’s shoulder at the sun and could see it was perched at breakfast time.

“What is it, Maw?”

Mawu pulled back and put both hands on Lizzie’s shoulders. “Sweet.”

Even before the words that followed, the words that would deliver Mawu’s message, Lizzie knew something was wrong.

She clenched her teeth and dropped her bundle, leaving it on the ground where it fell. Mawu led her away from the cottages into the woods. Lizzie knew where they were headed. The five little graves. For a moment, hope flickered inside of her. Maybe it wasn’t bad. But as Lizzie and Mawu approached the bodiless mounds of dirt covering the dresses and pants and shirt, she saw her friend laid out on her back, on the ground, hands folded across her chest, as if she had already been carefully laid to rest. Her eyes were closed, one side of her face covered with a cloth, the other side smooth as if recently wiped clean. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to Dayton the day before.

Reenie was already there, standing off to one side. Mawu pulled Lizzie right up to Sweet, and they both dropped to their knees.

Lizzie’s eyes roamed over Sweet’s body. “What happened?”

Reenie shook her head and told the women that Sweet had been discovered in the ravine by early morning hunters.

Lizzie shook her head. “I don’t understand. She fell?”

“Must be,” Reenie said. “I guess she lost her way in the dark.”

Lizzie started to cry.

“But she do look happy, don’t she?” Reenie said.

“How could she be happy?” Lizzie spoke to Reenie in a tone she had never used with the elder one before.

“Because there’s a afterworld,” Reenie said. “And in that afterworld, all our sadness go away. The Bible say that the Lord will wipe your tears away.”

Mawu spat on the ground. “The Bible! The Bible! That’s all you niggers talk about!”

“She freer than you is. That’s for sho!” Reenie’s spittle flew in Mawu’s face.

They were silent.

Finally, Lizzie whispered, “Sweet.”

They held the ceremony for Sweet at night, after the day’s chores were done. All of the slaves were in attendance and a few of the house servants. None of the white men came, although Sweet’s man had been there earlier, knelt over the body for some time. At least that’s what Philip told Lizzie. While Philip and George dug the grave, the white man sat beside her. And although they did not see tears, the men witnessed the hump of his back, the shake of his shoulders.

It was late when it all began. The men brought tall candles set into stakes. They planted them into the ground around Sweet’s body. It was a dark night, the crescent moon barely lighting the clearing. There was no box to put her in. The men had not had time to build one because the white men had insisted her body be buried quickly. There was also no cooling board on which to lay the body. So they just dug the hole as deeply as they could, nearly six feet under, so that the smell of her decaying body would not reach the surface.

There was no preacher to stand over her and make sure her soul made it to the right place. They all stood silently, waiting for someone to step forward and give Sweet’s body the honor it deserved.

It began with a song.

Mary had a baby.

Yes Lord.

Mary had a baby.

Yes my Lord.

Mary had a baby.

Yes Lord.

People keep a coming

But the train done gone.

They listened to the song as if they had never heard it sung before. And it did not matter that they usually sang it at Christmas. Reenie’s voice lifted over the other night sounds and floated into the darkness. She had a rich, deep voice. And although she rarely sang and wouldn’t ever call herself a singer, she barely missed a note that night. She sang the song slowly, befitting a funeral, not rapidly like they sang it when they were working.

Only Mawu stood a bit apart from the group, her face a mask, a chicken dangling from her hand. After Reenie had finished her song, Mawu opened her mouth: “They say he fed the hungry with a few loaves of bread. They say he turned water into wine. They say he walked on water. They say he calmed storms. They say he healed the blind and the deaf. That’s what they say.”

The chicken clucked, a string connecting its tiny neck to her wrist. She stopped speaking and picked the chicken up, spun it around until its neck broke. The wings started to flap. She turned it upside down and stuck a small knife in its mouth, making a slicing motion. Blood spilled onto the front of her dress. She lifted the chicken in the air and closed her eyes, mumbling something inaudible over the wind and rustling trees.

“Enough!” Philip shouted. He looked upset.

The two men rolled Sweet’s body into the grave. George shoved dirt into the hole, mumbling “God bless you” as he worked.

Reenie took Lizzie’s hand and walked away. Behind them, Mawu walked, holding the chicken out in front of her. Philip and George moved pile after pile of dirt into the hole, the blood of the dead fowl splattered on the ground around them.